Still Living Downtown
by silentrevyrie
Summary: Dan and Diana know they're too young, but they're not! Dan's almost 22! Diana is 18, and now she's evaluating her life and the path that her choices have taken her down.


**A/N: So, this is my first real attempt at any sort of N2N fanfic. I've been toying around with the concept of Diana significantly younger than Dan and I finally decided to run with it. I've also decided to address the things that Tom and Brian leave out in the show itself, like what happened to Diana's collegiate career and other little details like that. I chose to take it in the direction that I felt made the most sense with what canon gives us. **

**Reviews are great; I'd love to hear what everyone thinks!**

**Oh, and I don't own anything, unfortunately.**

Diana's hand shook as she wrote a new entry into her day planner—one of the last vestiges of the organizational skills her father had tried in vain to instill in her as a child. She almost shook her head in disbelief when she looked down; from what had formerly been an empty Tuesday in June that fell between "Summer II Semester registration, 2pm" and "19th Birthday!" the words "Get Married, Officiant's office, 11am" now stared her in the face. Dan had been nagging her to pick a date for weeks and Diana had managed to put it off for one reason or another…until now.

Dan's proposal was still as clear in Diana's memory as if it had been yesterday. It had been a particularly dreary day in late March, and Diana was sitting on the floor in one of her freshman dorm's common rooms, trying desperately to pretend she was anywhere else but there and that she hadn't just returned from her senior boyfriend's off-campus apartment, which he'd left earlier than she did, and that she hadn't left a note on his nightstand that read "I'm pregnant." She didn't notice Dan's presence until suddenly he was kneeling in front of her.

"Marry me."

"What?"

"Marry me. Let's have a family. I know we're too young, but we're not! I'm almost 22! And how do you know this isn't a sign saying we belong together?"

"And how do YOU know this isn't a sign saying 'get new rubbers?'"

"Because I know it's not. I love you…and this baby."

"Dan…this is crazy."

"Maybe it is!" In retrospect, Diana wasn't sure she'd even accepted Dan's proposal, unless "Dan, this is crazy" could be construed as "yes." She supposed it didn't really matter in the end; she loved Dan, or at least she thought she loved him. Regardless, Diana knew she needed to make this work, if not for her own sake, then for the sake of the child whose life was now her responsibility—no, hers and Dan's. Together.

Diana closed her day planner and dropped it back into her purse. Out of sight, out of mind. Dan would be home from work any minute and she still wasn't ready to leave the apartment; she was still in her blue nightgown and it was nearly one o'clock. They were having lunch with Diana's parents; Dan's supervisor had even let him leave early in order to accommodate their plans. Diana rarely spoke to her parents but Dan had finally convinced her that she was going to have to tell them she and Dan were engaged, which she'd done over the phone and to which her mother replied "Are you sure, sweetheart? You're awfully young to be rushing into marriage. You have your whole life ahead of you. There's no earthly reason for you to do this to yourself." Diana had meant to tell them about her pregnancy in that same phone call, but hadn't been able to bring herself to do so and instead ended up asking them to meet her and Dan for lunch so that they could all "catch up."

As she scoured her closet for something appropriate to wear out of the apartment, Diana remembered why she spent the majority of her time recently in her pajamas: nothing fit. She had just hit the awkward stage of the pregnancy that so many women had unwarrantedly warned her about, the one where she was too pregnant for her normal clothes but not quite pregnant enough for the maternity clothes she'd purchased. She'd just settled on a shapeless floral-print sundress when she heard the front door opening.

"Di, honey, I'm home!" Dan sounded excited, but Diana knew that deep down he was just as terrified as she was. Telling Dan's mother had been easy since they'd waited until the week after Dan graduated with his degree in architecture, as if they were trying to prove that he was enough of an adult to handle marriage and a child, since he'd made it out of undergrad in one piece. Diana's parents were going to be another experience entirely. Diana knew that there wasn't going to be a good way to tell her parents that, at eighteen, she'd barely managed to finish her freshman year of college and was now going to drop out to get married and have a baby. She'd fought tooth and nail to live in a dorm on campus instead of at home with her parents even though her school was only fifteen miles away, and her parents had finally given in, saying that they trusted her and that she was old enough to "handle herself." _Well, that worked out well, _Diana thought, shaking her head.

"I'll be out in just a sec!" Diana did her best to keep her voice steady and even, because if she let the façade crumble now, there was no way she'd be able to say "I'm pregnant" to her parents, nor would she be able to handle their pointed glances at her suddenly obvious pregnant belly, which would eventually force questions Diana didn't want to answer.

"Love, it's time to go," came Dan's voice from the other room of their two-room apartment. Diana plastered on as much of a smile as she muster before leaving the bedroom to face her fiancé. Marriage and pregnancy were supposed to be some of the happiest times of a person's life. Diana couldn't help but wonder why she didn't feel happy, at all.


End file.
